


Our Mark on the World

by PaladinofFarore



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Clones, F/F, Gabrielle is not a fan of the tv show, Modern Day, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23209648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaladinofFarore/pseuds/PaladinofFarore
Summary: They had been cloned back to life after two thousand years. Yet that fact wasn't as strange as attending a convention about their own adventures.Or: Gabrielle attends a Xena-Con, and gets a look in on how her stories helped to shape the world.
Relationships: Gabrielle/Xena
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	Our Mark on the World

She wasn’t sure how to classify her presence there, curiosity, or sheer egomania. 

Xena, bless her, hadn’t pushed back when she’d made the suggestion. She’d just nodded, albeit with that little knowing smirk of hers, and helped her to make it happen. She was curious too of course. But hers was more of a bemused, almost sidelong sort of curiosity. To her wife, it was something quite a bit more urgent. 

The creative and existential sort. 

Gabrielle stood leaned against a wall. It was early morning, but the sunlight had already filled the hallway. Nearly two dozen others stood with her along the wall. She was both thankful and slightly disappointed that this group lacked the costumes of the general crowd. They were wildly inaccurate, her green shirt had never been quite  _ that _ short, but they were also strangely charming. Even in their own time people had dressed up as them. But this was….surreal. 

Surreal, that was the only word for it, if there was a singular word to describe it. There wasn’t of course, because Gabrielle was quite sure that there wasn’t a word in any language to describe what she and her wife were going through. 

They were two thousand years in the future, both with very vivid memories of their own deaths. Xena’s, with her final fading from the world when her partner had placed her ashes in the crypt in Amphipolis. Gabrielle, succumbing to wounds nearly a decade later, having repelled a Roman army from slaughtering a group of fleeing Elijans. A final stand. 

Eve had held her hand as she died. 

Then, they were alive again and together. Together and so very, very tired.  They’d spent that first whole week just holding each other. They’d wandered the new world they’d found themselves in, cuddled beneath the stars, craving each other like the lungs craved air. 

“We’re stopping now,” Gabrielle had told Xena on the eighth day of their return. Xena had nodded, understanding at once. They had talked before of settling down. Neither had ever been entirely keen on the idea. There’d been moments of longing for it, for peace and quiet and mundanity, but the road, and the wanderlust both of them possessed, had always called them back. 

But this? This was the final straw for Gabrielle. They were done. They were stopping. This new world of metal and lights would be their retirement.    


“I’m….done, with your martyr complex, Xena.” The sentiment had been rattling about in her brain for years. Since her warrior had died on a snowy mountain.

“I know,” came the quiet reply. Not the answer she’d been expecting. A welcome one, but not expected. “I...think I am too.” 

“You’ll let it be enough?” she’d asked, weakly. In that moment she felt so much that small village girl and not the legendary warrior. In that quiet moment she was not an Amazon queen. Not the fabled Battling Bard. She was something so much smaller than a legend.

“Yeah,” Xena replied, running a finger along Gabrielle’s cheek. “Yeah. After two thousand years...I think it’s enough.” 

Gabrielle kissed her then. It ached, to press her own lips to hers. Ached with a decade of longing. Yet it had lost none of its sweetness. 

“I love you,” Xena said. Three words that hit with the same intensity every time. 

“I love you forever.” 

So they had started to live. They went out into the new world and started over. 

The resurrection had been a lot to handle, but it wasn’t the strange part. They had dealt with resurrection before. They had rebuilt their lives in a new time before. 

The strange part was that Gabrielle was currently attending a ‘convention’ dedicated to her and Xena’s adventures. To the television show that had brought their story to the attention of the world. She was….not a fan. 

They had watched several episodes in the small but cozy apartment they had managed to acquire with a combination of scraped together cash and a few odd jobs done for the kindly old landlady. Xena had spent a good portion of the run time laughing. Gabrielle had spent it scowling. 

“These are not my stories,” she’d said through gritted teeth, arms crossed. Xena poked at her shoulder. 

“I mean, it’s not too far off,” the warrior’s mouth was half full of potato chips, her new favorite snack. 

“I did not make moon eyes at every boy we met on the road.” 

Xena had shrugged. 

“You made moon eyes at half of them. Guess they just rounded up. I thought you had a thing with Homer?” the chips muched loudly.

Gabrielle shook her head. 

“No, just friends. That one they got right. One of the few things.” 

“That O’Connor woman has your abs. So they got the important stuff down.” 

That earned a laugh. 

“Lucy Lawless does have your weird facial expressions down.” She was also quite striking. 

That earned a punch to the shoulder. 

She was not a fan of the show. Yet she’d spent the last two days wandering a gathering of fans, having her mind melted. Maybe she was a masochist. She must be, seeing as she had spent nearly an entire day listen to strangers debate whether she and her soulmate were actually in a romantic relationship. Culture shifted over time, but she was fairly certain that women tended not to commision poetry from Sappho for their platonic friends. Or request to be buried with them (and later actually be buried with them). Or awaken each other from curses with the power of true loves kiss. Hearing a passing fan mention that they actually preferred Xena with Ares had nearly resulted in a full on meltdown. She was also thankful Xena had been in the foodcourt at the time and hadn't overheard someone 'ship' her with Joxer. Her real motivation for coming however was one panel in particular. It had caught her attention in the newspaper, and she had spent the last two weeks all but buzzing with anticipation. 

Doctor Melinda Pappas, one of the two women who had rediscovered her scrolls decades ago, the woman who translated them, would be giving a talk. A rare enough occurence that it actually made the new. The southern woman was retired, and was known to be reclusive. She made very few public appearances. In some ways, it was an event. 

Yet, Gabrielle noticed, the line waiting for the talk was quite small. Nowhere near the lines that had gathered to hear the cast and crew speak. Her irritation only grew at that. It figured that the bastardized version of her stories would be the ones to be popular while the more historical account would be ignored. 

Well, not ignored. They were widely read, in fact. Their rediscovery and the reattachment of her name to them (another feat to be attributed to Pappas and her translation) were considered one of the most important works of the ancient world. ‘The missing piece of history’ some had called her work as a whole. 

Gabrielle had tried and failed to keep her pride at that fact under control. 

That pride was soured somewhat by the fact that the scrolls were most well known for their less than serious adaptation. That was what the vast majority of people had gathered there to celebrate. Not her work, but the works of men who’d happened to inherit the scrolls. 

She was deep in frustrated thought when the line moved slightly. Someone had gotten out. Without looking she moved, and nearly tripped over the woman standing to her left. 

“Oh!” she gasped. “I’m sorry!” 

“Not a problem!” the young woman squeaked. She reached down and picked up what she’d dropped. A book. 

“Are you alright?” Gabrielle asked. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s alright. I- I didn’t move. Distracted.” 

The young woman dusted herself off. She was the same height as Gabrielle, with a head of mousy brown hair that fell to just above her shoulders. She wore a pair of ratty jeans that looked to be barely holding themselves together and a t-shirt with coloring so faded that calling it second hand would be generous. 

The brightest colors on her were the purple frames of her glasses, large and round, and the green cover of the book nestled beneath her crossed arms. 

THE XENA SCROLLS, proclaimed the shiny lettering. A bookmark protruded from the pages. 

“I’m Nicole,” Gabrielle introduced herself. ‘Gabrielle’ was still a fairly common woman's name, but she’d decided to play it safe and had picked a new name to go with Xena’s ‘Elizabeth’. “Nice to meet you.”

The young woman smiled nervously.

“B-Becky,” she introduced herself. “Nice to-to meet you.” She adjusted her glasses. 

“Doing some reading?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Becky seemed to brighten at that. A bit of the nervousness faded out of her. “Rereading, actually.” 

It was Gabrielle’s turn to brighten. 

“Rereading?” she asked with a smile, not unkindly. She imagined Xena rolling her eyes. 

Becky blushed. 

“Yeah. I’ve read it for myself, but it got assigned for a class I’m taking.” 

“They’re actually teaching it?” Gabrielle asked. 

Apparently, many schools, especially high schools, were hesitant to put it on their curriculum, all the while teaching Homer. Much as Gabrielle admired her friend and his skills, his mark on history had largely been compiling various stories surrounding the Trojan War and its aftermath. And, as she had ranted to Xena on several occasions, most of his second volume was outright fiction. 

Universities were generally more accepting, but her work had only received mass publication in the last few years. It was ‘new’ work, and hadn’t quite squeezed its way into mainstream thought outside of academia. 

“Yep,” Becky chirped, practically bouncing. “In my women's studies class. My professor was insistent on it. You’ve read it?” 

“Oh yes.” 

This was...technically true. She hadn’t actually read through the scrolls in their entirety in a long, long time, especially the early ones. 

Excitement lit up like light-bulbs in Becky’s eyes. 

“Finally!” she said. “My friends all love the show, but none of them have read the real thing!” 

Gabrielle smiled. 

“The show is….” she hesitated. “Alright. I’m more interested in the history.” 

Becky nodded. 

“They get lots of stuff wrong, even not counting all the censorship. But they did more research then they get credit for sometimes.”

“Oh? How’s that?” Gabrielle was genuinely curious. Doing research might’ve prevented travesties like ‘Ulysses’ from airing. 

“Well, like the theme song.” 

Gabrielle blinked. The theme song? She hadn’t much thought about the musical trill that played during the show's intro. It was catchy, but little else. 

“The theme song?” 

“Here, let me show you.” 

Becky set her book down and opened her notebook. She stepped closer to Gabrielle, gesturing for her to look. 

“See the theme song is actually an old Bulgarian folk song called Kaval Sviri. They don’t play the lyrics during the intro, that would get in the way of the ‘In a time of ancient gods’ thing, but the composer, Joseph LoDuca, definitely did his homework. This song is about Gabrielle.” 

She pointed to a notebook page with lyrics carefully printed out. 

_ A kaval is playing, mother, _

_ Up-down, mother, up-down, mother. _

_ Kaval is playing, mother, _

_ Up-down, mother, outside the village. _

_ I'll go there, mother, to see it, _

_ To see it, mother, to hear it _

_ If it’s a man from our village _ _   
_ _ I’ll love him from dawn until dusk _

_ If it’s the stranger _ _   
_ _ I’ll love her all my life _

Gabrielle did her best to school her face to one of simple fascination. She was glad in that moment that Xena wasn’t with her. She could imagine the look in her eyes, the one positively dripping with ‘at last, a taste of your own medicine.’ Of course songs and stories had been written about her. She had...never heard this one. Had she really stayed in that region long enough to inspire a song? Just a few months, shepherding Elijan’s fleeing north from the wrath of Rome. 

Artists worked quickly. They absorbed events like sod absorbed rainwater. 

She felt a swell of admiration for the composer. Alright, she considered. Perhaps not everyone involved in the show was a hack after all. The pinpricks she felt at the corners of her eyes were proof enough of that. 

Taking a breath, she looked back up at Becky. 

“Wow, I’d never heard that before. You really know your stuff.” 

Again, Becky blushed. She closed the notebook and retrieved her book. 

“Thanks,” she said, sheepishly. 

“Are you studying to be a historian? You’d be really good at it.” 

Becky scratched the back of her neck. The nervous tick, the anxiety, had crawled back into view. 

“N-not really. Just...these stories mean a lot to me.” She looked near to the point of tears. Gabrielle placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. That touch revealed a lot. Becky was terribly thin, mostly bones beneath her clothing. 

“Hey,” Gabrielle soothed, voice growing soft. “It’s ok.” 

A few fat tears trickled down the girl's cheek. 

“I’m sorry,” she all but whispered. “I get too emotional sometimes.” 

The bitterness was sharp in her voice.

“Don’t apologize,” Gabrielle said. “It’s alright.” 

Becky nodded. 

“I know the scrolls can get a little heavy sometimes,” Gabrielle tried to joke. “I cried too.” 

The last pair of scrolls had been stained with tears by the time they were complete.

Becky shook her head. 

“It’s not that. It’s…”

Gabrielle squeezed her shoulder. 

“It’s alright.” 

The girl took a long shuddering breath. Steadily her breathing began to normalize. She wiped at her cheek with the back of her hand. 

“Sorry about that.” 

Gabrielle smiled. 

“No problem.” 

Becky gave her a shaky smile of her own.

“God I’m a mess.” 

“We all are sometimes. Should’ve seen my partner trying to hail a cab the other day.” 

Xena was as big a fan of cars as she was of guns. Were it up to her, they’d still get everywhere on horseback and any fighting would be done either with fists or with swordplay. Gabrielle reached out and tapped the cover of Becky’s book. The one with her own name in golden letters. 

She hesitated. 

“It means that much to you?” the question came out feather soft. 

Becky nodded. 

“My parents...they’re Elijan. Like, hardcore Elijan. You know, the fire and brimstone kind. One step out of line and its straight to hell for you. They had a lot of ideas about what a girl should be...and I didn’t really fit any of them.” 

“I came from a town a bit like that,” says Gabrielle. 

Becky nods. There’s satisfaction in the movement. A look in the eyes that is absolutely starved to be  _ understood _ . 

“Then you get it. If it was up to them I’d be married with three kids by now.” She sighed, raggedly. “My dad used to go on and on about what a woman should and shouldn’t be doing. He’d flip his head, seeing me in jeans.” 

A pang shot through Gabrielle’s heart. Two thousand years ago, perhaps this girl would have found her way to the amazons. Many sisters had come to them in that way. Wayward daughters or wives who refused to submit to belligerent men. Becky would’ve fit right in. 

“That’s part of why I got into the show,” Becky continued. “And the scrolls, of course. They were the first history I ever read that admitted that women  _ did  _ anything. That was all we read in school, all we heard about in church. How great men made the world what it was and how it was a woman’s duty to follow them.” 

She ran a finger down the spine of the book.

“Historians leave out a lot, don’t they?” Gabrielle said. An undercurrent of anger bubbled in her voice. In her time in the new era she hadn’t managed to do as much reading as she’d have liked. She intended, she told Xena, to read as close to every word written since they’d been gone as she could. 

But she’d visited the library and delved into their own history. History of home, Ancient Greece. And it had been exactly like Becky said. Women went virtually unmentioned aside from wives or concubines. She and Xena appeared in some accounts, but they were so scattered that until the reemergence of her scrolls they had largely been dismissed as myths. Stories and nothing more. 

The Amazon Nation was a myth now. A memory scattered to the wind. 

“They do,” Becky agreed. “But Gabrielle didn’t. That’s why it took so long for her work to get published, even after the scrolls were found. Doctor Pappas and Doctor Covington knew they’d be dismissed. My parents still dismissed it.” 

Her enthusiasm drained from her eyes, and she looked down. 

“They dismissed a lot of things. They...they kicked me out, last year.”

“Why? For reading about history?” 

“No...because I’m gay.” 

“Oh.” 

Gabrielle felt her face grow hot. More so than the handling of any of her scrolls, the translation and interpretation of the teachings of Eli baffled and enraged her in equal measure. In particular, the idea that they in any way condemned homosexuality. 

As time went on her feelings towards her one time mentor had grown more and more mixed, but he had only ever been supportive of her and Xena’s relationship. Now, people used his words to vilify people for the crime of loving someone. 

In its modern form, Eli’s way bore little resemblance to the Way of Love. Over the centuries it had fractured into so many sub-factions that it was hard to reconcile the fact that they had ever been one system of belief. 

The world had changed so much. Yet it hadn’t changed at all. 

“So am I,” Gabrielle told her. Becky’s eyebrows rose above her hairline, shocked, at how easily the words came out. "My parents never kicked me out for it. But they never approved of my partner." It stung less now, thinking of them. Though the regret of never truly making peace with them still lingered. 

"You have a partner?" Becky asked, nearly breathless. 

"I do," Gabrielle smiled. "We've been together for about eight years now. She's working now but she'll be joining me later." 

With all the various time jumps, comas and rebirths she'd actually had to think about the math on that one. Becky smiled again, but it was a smile tinged with tears. 

"I never even knew something like that was possible. Not until...all of this," she indicated the book and the convention center around them. 

"That's what stories are for," Gabrielle said. Her heart was rising in her throat. It was a miracle she hadn't cried. "To help us see the world better."

"That's why Gabrielle is my hero," Becky said. "Without her I don't think I'd have ever known myself." 

They continued talking back and forth until the doors finally opened. Gabrielle would decide that the trip was worth it. 

"It was strange," she would say to Xena later that evening when they lie in bed. "But I think...it was different. I've talked to people who've read my writing before but most of them were other bards...this....seeing it from someone else's eyes...I'm not used to being a character, or anything more than the one telling the story."

Xena kissed the top of her head. 

"It was the same for me, you know," she told her. "And you've always done that."

"Done what?"

"Denied yourself credit. Let yourself slip into the background. Which is funny, considering how much you love being the center of attention." An elbow jabbed at her ribs. "I don't think you ever really read your own work too closely, if you came away from them thinking I was the hero in it all." She chuckled into the darkness of their bedroom. "You've always inspired people. Like at the start of your first scroll, when you convinced a woman who'd given up that maybe she should keep going." 

They kissed. An ignition, a little fire between them that burned bright as any star. 

"You've always been my hero, Gabrielle. I hope you know that by now." 


End file.
